#FridayFlash: Random Photo Story – White
For today’s Flash Fiction, I’ve decided to participate in Chuck Wendig’s Random Photo Story Challenge.
Here are the three photos I chose for my inspiration: (Links because all are copywritten):
White
She had been told, as a rookie, that there was always one unsolved case that stuck with you, the case that you never forgot, that you were never able to forgive yourself for failing to solve. The older cops, the retired cops at the bar, they said that no matter how long you worked with that hanging over your head, in the end, that case will be the reason that you quit.
It rained the day she came across hers. The weather was almost like the murderer had planned it to be so, like the sky cooperated to make everything look even more muted and grey.
The apartment the victim had been found in was one of those colorless modern numbers, all black and white, metal and glass and hard lines. It was the sort of pristine apartment where you can’t imagine anyone with mud on their boots, a dog on the sofa, toddlers running around, or any of those dirty things that inevitably come with living. It was too sterile for that, for anyone to actually live in. There hadn’t even been any food in the refrigerator.
The crime scene was as sterile as the rest of the place. Not a fingerprint to be found. The victim was naked, of course, but whatever she’d worn to get to that place had disappeared, everything except a silver bracelet around one wrist. She was beautiful and as pristine as the apartment, not a mark on her and nothing to mar her perfect skin. She lay there, white against steel grey sheets, her dark hair spread over the pillow like she was sleeping. There was no blood, no body fluids at all, not on the sheets and not anywhere else. The only two splashes of color in the apartment were the red of her lips and a single granny-smith apple sitting on the piano keys.
She always wondered after that why the murderer would leave that one apple in an apartment with no other food. It hadn’t even been tasted. No fingerprints. No saliva. Just a perfect apple, green against the black and white. It didn’t make sense why it would be there.
Poison had been the murder weapon. That, the victim’s dark hair, her fair skin, and the apple, well, it always made her think of a fairy tale. They never identified the girl, and they never found any scrap of evidence to point to a suspect. A week after she had been found, the body disappeared from the morgue. The case was filed away – cold from the start.
When the detective retired, that was the one that she couldn’t forget.
As an old woman, she thought she saw the girl once, on the street with a handsome young man on her arm, but when she turned to watch them they were gone. There was only a small bearded man sitting on the street rattling a can. Coins for the poor?
She dropped a few quarters in the can and went on her way.
© 2012 – Jennifer L. Davis
If you haven’t stopped over yet, Chuck’s doing a quite interesting project celebrating the release of his new novel, Blackbirds. It’s a tumblog called “This is How You Die” where folks are submitting stories and artwork detailing their own deaths. If you haven’t yet, go and submit your death today!
- #FridayFlash - Just a Normal Day
- #FridayFlash - All Cats in the Dark
- #FridayFlash - Unexpected
- #FridayFlash: Random Photo Story - White








Recent Comments